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The best way to start a year!!!!!

Well….I’m back! cant say i am too happy at the prospect of being back in dreary cold england but it is what it is! On a more positive note, WHAT AN AMAZING START TO THE YEAR!!!! Spending the first month of the year in asia was definitely the best option ever.It was an incredible trip, emotional as always, catching up with much loved people and animals, and as always, finding it a huge struggle to say goodbye to them all again after what was definitely not enough time! The trip started in KL with a wonderful few days trying to find anywhere we hadn’t yet been in Kuala Lumpur (which is pretty tricky as we worked out it was about my 14th time there!!!).

Next we headed over to see one of my favourite people in the world and all her animal charges, at Samboja Lestari. It was a brief visit (way to brief compared with the past 2 visits there having been 6 months and 3 months long!) but gave us time enough to give our friends there as many hugs as we could and catch up with some well known animal faces that we have been lucky enough over the past 4 years to have had an involvement in their rescue and lives. it was wonderful to see the progress at the centre and of the animals, to hear all the gossip and to spend some well overdue time in such a beautiful place surrounded by amazing personalities! I don’t think I stopped smiling the whole time we were there, until it came to the inevitable good byes that is! Hardest. Thing. Ever.

Next came a stop over in my favourite place in the world, Bali. You know those really unrealistic dreams you have to move to paradise and live out a life laid back in the sun? well this is my paradise. Close enough to all the people i love on that side of the world, easy access to visit all my animal friends and projects i love, endless sun, beautiful people and culture, wonderful scenery, creativity and artistic inspiration by the bucket load, and a place that holds the best memories…..maybe one day I will be writing this and making jewellery from my little garden in my house in bali or better yet from the beach…..but back to reality….

We had a wonderful few days in bali, again catching up with a few local friends, re-visiting some well loved places, and best of all, getting to spend my birthday being tattooed by a very good friend out there, followed by a walk in the forest with the monkeys and some of the best balinese food with pineapple and ginger mojitos whilst watching the sun set over the rice paddies…not bad! Saw endless amounts of traditional jewellery and was endlessly scribbling in my sketch book with new ideas and things to experiment with in the studio.

Next stop was a night back in KL before flying to Laos. Unfortunately we made the ill fated decision that due to time restraints of getting in really late and having a flight at stupid o’clock the next morning, to grab something quick and western for dinner before falling into bed to catch a couple of hours sleep. Big mistake. I will spare the details but lets just say the next 4 days (including a day that involved 2 flights and a long tuk-tuk journey!?!?) were a complete write off and mainly involved thinking we were both dyeing. In a room with only a curtain for a bathroom door…

However, after re-emerging from our death like state we had an amazing week of soaking up the colours, vibrancy and pure laid back tranquility of Luang Prabang. Cycling round the streets, visiting wats and temples, marvelling at the sheer number of monks, spending time at an elephant sanctuary (was amazing!!!), eating huge amounts, wandering the rabbit warrens of the handicraft markets and learning from the Hmong women how to dye and weave silk. It was fantastic! and it was cool at night, the only country on the trip where you could walk out of the shower and not immediately feel like you needed to get back in again!

Along the way I also spotted a vast amount of beautiful silver work, including the huge tribal chest plates and necklaces worn by the women from some of the surrounding tribal villages. The intricacy and delicate nature of the decoration was mind blowing, and just like in Bali, I spent a lot of my evenings furiously scribbling down all the ideas and inspiration I had seen each day.

Laos was the one new place that we visited on this trip, and I must say, I think we both fell in love with the place and would highly recommend a visit! It was nice to try to explore and discover somewhere we had never been again.

After Laos we had managed to squeeze in a quick visit back to Borneo, to Sarawak, to once again catch up with some wonderful and much missed friends and see how the animals we had worked with at one of the centres had got on in the time since we were last there. It was a great whistle stop visit, and we even got to see Ganti, one of the orangutans that gave birth when we were last at the centre and had since been released. Her and her ‘not so baby’ baby had come down from the forest and we got to see them building nests and playing in the trees near the centre. It was lovely! All the others had come on a long way too, and were looking so healthy and happy compared to the state they came in like when we were there last.

It was a great trip, that was over way too quick! It ended with one last night in KL where we tried to get our fill of all our favourite foods and just soak up the last bit of liveliness and atmosphere, and sun! This trips end was made a little easier with one of our great friends from Malaysia actually joining us on the journey home and coming to stay in the UK with us, but still, every time i leave Asia, I feel like I am leaving a bit of me behind, it feels wrong and every fibre of me doesn’t want to leave! I thought that each time i went back it would get easier leaving, but it doesn’t, in fact i think it gets harder!!!

Nicola Clarke is a designer maker, creating adornments, for the body, home and weddings, inspired by her love of nature, tattoos and her extensive travels around the world working on community and conservation projects.